[via OSNews]:"By all early reports, Windows 8 is going to be a good operating system. Microsoft's hegemony may be crumbling in a mobile computing onslaught, but its core empire remains undimmed. However, whereas Windows 7 had three versions, Windows 8 will apparently be ballooning to 9 versions. According to the Windows 8 registry file, the nine versions are":

Windows 8 ARM edition

Windows 8 Starter Edition

Windows 8 Home Basic

Windows 8 Home Premium

Windows 8 Professional

Windows 8 Professional Plus

Windows 8 Ultimate

Windows 8 Enterprise Eval

Windows 8 Enterprise

_______________________________________________I understand the ARM and Enterprise editions (and that Microsoft has traditional done this with Office, but why so many Home/Pro editions? Help me understand this.

Been playing with the preview and it is REALLY annoying to try and do anything.

All the Metro Apps are badly designed for anyone using a mouse (including the start screen).

Scrolling right and left the whole time gives me repetitive strain injury after about half an hour.

Which ones of these will sell:

ARM edition (And will probably be the best of the bunch - but only when some decent apps appear)Starter Edition on Netbooks - because OEMs will have no choiceHome editions on laptops and desktops because OEMs have no choice.

I would personally be surprised if MS sell a single copy of any of the Pro, Ultimate or Enterprise offerings if they look even remotely like the preview - unless they count the ones they sell to their own staff!

Grief there is probably a majority of businesses still using XP and are reluctant to move to 7 - I can see the Win 8 versions causing a mass exodus to Linux when XP support is withdrawn.

I can see the Win 8 versions causing a mass exodus to Linux when XP support is withdrawn.

Where oh where have I heard this before....Seems like....hmmm, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP....notice a trend? And how much share has linux gained on the desktop from these "predicted mass exodus"?

Windows XP has been the single most successful OS for Microsoft. OK it took some time to be picked up by businesses.

Vista is the only operating system where I have seen the unwashed electing to upgrade to Windows 7 - it was that awful.

Windows 7 is pretty good and solid but after the Vista debacle huge numbers of businesses have simply stuck with XP. I have sourced copies of XP for business customers who want to replace windows 7 on new machines - that's the level of reluctance (however misplaced) I have seen.

I can't see any business anywhere opting to move to Windows 8 for any reason whatsoever.

Businesses are however acutely aware of security issues and the fact that XP support is coming to an end.

Either they will bite the bullet and move to Windows 7 while it is still available or they will look for an alternative. I can't see any business adopting Windows 8 if they can possibly avoid it.

Heck - I can't see many average home users wanting Windows 8 on a desktop - with or without a touch screen.

PS: My reference to mass exodus was in terms of businesses who have the potential to move to Linux or Mac - actually I think Mac is probably more likely in the long term - MS have lost the plot.

Windows XP has been the single most successful OS for Microsoft. OK it took some time to be picked up by businesses.

Windows XP was an excellent OS, but one might argue part of its success was out of all of MS's OSes it had the longest run on retail shelves without anything coming out to replace it. Although, when its replacement arrived it was less polished than it could/should have been.

Regardless, it had 5+ years on retail shelves with nothing being marketed to replace it. That helped boost its user base considerably.

Is there a definitive source, from Microsoft, claiming that you will not be able to turn off Metro? I simply refuse to believe that Microsoft would pull such a move given their penetration into the business market.

The definitive answer is in their own words "desktop is the legacy interface".

By removing the option to re-enable the Start menu (albeit a single registry value) that was present in the early preview releases for developers I think MS are making it clear that Metro is where they think the future of Windows will be and they want to discourage the use of the desktop as soon as possible - heck it won't even be available on ARM tablets and phones.

This shouldn't come as any surprise - they have seen the cash cow Apple has produced in iOS (whatever you think of that OS) and they want to get in on the act. Metro, they think, will be the new MS cash cow but to my mind all it will do is alienate an awful lot of their most loyal customer base.

On a tablet, does a standard "desktop" really make sense? Really, iOS and Android to not present a desktop in the standard sense. Metro is but a modification of the existing phone/tablet interface designed around the Windows back-end.

Knowing the business market, I am almost certain Microsoft will retain the standard desktop interface simply due to the backlash they would receive from the enterprise market. Desktop users, for the most part (not any of the folks here), will typically use whatever comes on their computer. Heck, my mother-in-law only starts up her computer to use wordpad or internet explorer. Metro would make a lot more sense for her, and a majority of home users who really don't need anything more than a few key icons.

Again, just because they claim desktop is a "legacy interface" doesn't mean that there won't be a standard desktop in the next version of Windows. I feel this is just the fan base over-reacting to Microsoft attempting to get as much testing out of the new, tablet based, interface for Windows.

I don't think it's just microsoft with this type of weird UI thinking but almost every platform (linux, OSX and other commercial OS) out there is assuming that future belongs to touch interface. This is too early to decide. Touch interface for desktop usage isn't cheap migration from any angle. Another fact that touch monitors learning curve from desktop isn't easy for all and therefore, same interface on all platforms don't make sense at all. Like it or not but - taskbar removal, minimize button removal, forcing one app at a time are bad design practices for desktops. Learning curve for any OS becomes difficult with such changes atleast for desktop usage.

Windows 8 has not even hit beta yet. In the development of every previous Windows version Microsoft has been quite liberal in trying new things...adding some, removing some, modifying some. I don't think we will see what the final form of Windows 8 will be till midway through the beta process (usually it's around the Beta 2 time-frame).

Who cares how many different SKUs there will be? There will be only one or two versions available on retailers' shelves so the sheeple won't get confused. The rest will be reserved for emerging markets & tech-oriented people who'll know where to go to get the features they want/need.

If you want to talk about confusion due to too many versions, let's discuss how many Linux distros are out there.

If you want to talk about confusion due to too many versions, let's discuss how many Linux distros are out there.

Nope! Apples and oranges. Not a valid analogy.

Most distros only differ in the default settings chosen, the kernal version, and which software gets included in the standard installation package. ALL distros are capable of running any GNU/Linux software and supporting any feature found in any other distro. The differences are therefore mainly cosmetic.

Different SKUs and versions represent different capabilities in Windows. Anything below the current Ultimate or Enterprise edition represents a version of Windows with an increasingly reduced or disabled feature set.

Differences in distros are examples of differing personal preferences in an OS and desktop environment. Differences in Windows versions are manifestations of a granular pricing strategy on the part of Microsoft.

But to your point, yes...there probably are fartoomany distros out there!

I think better way to see it is like this - using different shell on windows makes it different OS? No. So why same kernel and different DE in linux is considered as another OS?

By the way, for those who are not aware - starter editions are usually limited on features that are only found in premium/ultimate blah blah. You'll realize this when you purchase laptop with starter edition in the hope of cost saving and later realize that it was a bad deal. That is never the case with linux and apple. You get what you paid for. Only Microsoft differentiates user based on their pockets and hide the argument behind the excuse of - "user type".

I was not trying to make a direct comparison between Windows & Linux. I fully realize they are apples & oranges. My point was that people always whinge about the confusing number of Windows editions when Microsoft plainly publishes a comparison chart listing out every difference between the different versions.

However, trying to find such a comparison chart lining out all the differences between the different Linux distros is a little harder to find.

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Most distros only differ in the default settings chosen, the kernal version, and which software gets included in the standard installation package. ALL distros are capable of running any GNU/Linux software and supporting any feature found in any other distro. The differences are therefore mainly cosmetic.

Why, yes. Yes, they do. So why do we need so many of them?

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Different SKUs and versions represent different capabilities in Windows. Anything below the current Ultimate or Enterprise edition represents a version of Windows with an increasingly reduced or disabled feature set.

Differences in distros are examples of differing personal preferences in an OS and desktop environment. Differences in Windows versions are manifestations of a granular pricing strategy on the part of Microsoft.

So what you are saying is that Microsoft makes different versions of Windows to market different features to different markets. That makes sense...since they are a for-profit company.

You are also saying that distros are different due to configuration preferences. Why do there need to be so many different distros when a simple install wizard would cover 99% of all preferences in configuration?

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But to your point, yes...there probably are fartoomany distros out there!

Yes, there are without any good reason for there to be. A good example is Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu....the only major difference is one has Gnome & one has KDE. Include both and put forth a choice in the install wizard!!

I think that one reason Microsoft could have so many different editions is the licensing required behind components in each edition. For example, I bet they have additional royalties they have to pay to license certain technology in different editions. This could be why Terminal Services (RDP) is not enabled in home editions. There is probably some underlying patent that Microsoft has to pay royalties on to use. This is one area where Linux does not have to worry.

Microsoft just released details on the versions of Windows 8 it’ll offer when the OS ships — most likely sometime in October.

Although the company will simplify the current huge array of Windows versions with Win8, the choices are really not any simpler at all.

Microsoft used to have a simple, small set of SKUs (stock-keeping units — what you and I would call versions) for Windows. For example, XP first shipped with just two: Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional. XP Professional added the ability to join a domain and to act as a server (a host or, as I like to say, a “puppet”) in a Remote Desktop session: it included Encrypting File System (EFS), Group Policy Editor, and a handful of lesser features.

Then the proverbial hit the fan. Within two years we had Windows XP Starter Edition, Media Center Edition, and Tablet PC Edition — all of which were available only as preinstalled software on new systems (in theory). XP Professional was also released in 64-bit versions (which worked on alternate Tuesdays) for Itanium (Wikipedia info page) and Itanium 2 processors. (The original XP Pro 64 was released simultaneously with XP Pro, but I don’t think it worked until years later.) Then there was the XP Professional x64 Edition.

That murky situation wasn’t made any clearer with Vista — and Windows 7 followed in Vista’s footsteps.

Given that history, there was hope that Microsoft would finally reduce the version complexity and give us — well, uh — just Windows 8. But in an April 16 post, Microsoft’s irrepressible Brandon LeBlanc announced the range of Windows 8 versions/SKUs the company plans to offer.

An introduction to the various new SKUs

I think the easiest way to understand Win8′s new SKUs is to compare them with Windows 7. Here’s the breakdown: follow this link to read the more important part of the article:http://windowssecret...s-8-versions/#story1